Politicians and the news media go head-to-head quite often. To a large degree, one side has a lot of contempt for the other (sometimes not, just for the record). But you know, they deserve each other sometimes. How else can we explain this exchange from the transcripts of the White House press briefing between reporters and Scott McClellan aboard Air Force One yesterday.

The Senate Taxes Committee just killed again — at least for now — the Gophers stadium bill on a 6-6 vote, instigating a public spat between Sen. Larry Pogemiller and Sen. William Belanger, that revealed the behind-the-scenes dealings on this bill since yesterday, when the same committe tacked on a 13-percent sports memorabilia tax to raise the annual state payment to the stadium — then killed it on a tie vote. Still with me? Good, that makes one of us.

So today, Pogemiller pulled the tax out of the bill, and separated it from the Twins and Vikings legislation, apparently under assurances that the votes would be there to pass it.

I got another call today from a candidate in the 5th Congressional District, why there’s no profile of him (I didn’t catch his name) in the District. Sorry to repeat a Polinaut entry but here it is: you have to tell me you’re running. Simple, eh?

Another House seat opens. Rep. Ron Abrams has been appointed to the bench by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. One of these days, I’ll have to tally up how many House and Senate seats have been opened in the last few years by people Pawlenty has plucked for bigger things.

I’ve commented a number of times here about how politicians get themselves into trouble when they do contortions to admit messing up; something that the people — who really aren’t stupid — can accept. We saw it from the GOP Party in the same-sex marriage CD story, which would’ve gone away in an hour if they had said, “whoops, we messed up.” And we saw it in the Dean Johnson controversy, which similarly would’ve disappeared a lot quicker for the guy if he’d ignored the instincts of politicians to shift to damage control.

I’ve never met DFL communications boss David Ruth. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met any of the current DFL honchos. But I’ve seen people post good things about his work on various blogs, so here’s the deal: he’s quitting.